Sequoia restructures India team, splits it into growth and venture

Sequoia India's venture team which will make early-stage investments is going to be headed by Mohit Bhatnagar, while the growth team, which typically bets on more mature companies, is going to steered by GV Ravishankar.Samidha Sharma | ETtech | Updated: October 18, 2018, 10:01 IST

Silicon Valley’s premier venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital India has kicked in a significant internal reorganisation on the back of top-level departures over the past year, ET has learnt.

The VC fund, which has backed companies like Mu Sigma, Zomato, Oyo Rooms, has split its investment team in India into venture and growth, its first such move here since starting up in 2006.

The venture team which will make early-stage investments is going to be headed by Mohit Bhatnagar, while the growth team, which typically bets on more mature companies, is going to be steered by GV Ravishankar.

Both Bhatnagar and Ravishankar are managing directors and partners at the fund. There are no separate capital allocations made for the teams, though, people familiar with the matter said.

In the US and China, Sequoia follows a similar model, like some of its other Silicon Valley peers, having teams concentrating on early and late-stage deals which also raise separate funds.

But this sort of a structure wasn’t followed in India, till last year, when Sequoia first introduced the idea of having teams working independently. Unlike what had been widely discussed, the two teams at Sequoia have not been divided sector wise (tech and non-tech) but on the basis of the stage of investment that they’d focus on.

Sequoia’s MD Shailendra Singh, in a response to ET’s query said, “We think the India market has now evolved to a point where there is depth in the growth equity market, and we have staffed ourselves in a manner consistent with our teams in the US and China, where the markets are deeper.”

He added that Sequoia globally follows a shared leadership model which is the same in India and Southeast Asia. All MD’s have the same title. Abheek Anand, Mohit Bhatnagar, Shailesh Lakhani, GV Ravishankar, and myself collectively lead the India and SEA business, he told ET.

Having two different teams chasing venture and growth opportunities separately will likely give Sequoia better focus and maybe even strengthen the possibility of having two separate funds in the future. But it isn’t clear how the dynamics of the team will play out if a high-quality venture bet becomes a growth-stage opportunity in the portfolio.

Aside, of the reorganization, in order to bulk up the growth team, Sequoia is bringing on board Tejeshwi Sharma, who was managing India investments for Chinese tech giant, Tencent, another person privy to the development said.

In August, Sequoia India announced it had closed its sixth India fund racking up $695 million, this was trimmed by 25% in size compared to the $920-million Fund V, launched in 2016. At the time of the announcement, the firm said Abhay Pandey, MD and partner, who had been with the fund for 11 years was quitting.

Pandey’s departure came on the back of another two MDs - VT Bharadwaj and Gautam Mago also leaving the firm. The three have since banded together to start A91 Partners which will raise Rs 2,000 crore in capital to back companies with $10-30 million cheques across consumer, technology and healthcare sectors.